Five Ways that Community Support Can Help You Stay Sober

Be aware of the benefits of community support for addiction recovery and relapse prevention

Having multiple avenues of support during addiction recovery is essential to remaining sober and overcoming relapse triggers. It is common for recovering addicts to have necessary support from friends, family members and 12-Step programs. However, community support is often overlooked and it is one of the most valuable forms of recovery support. When a recovering addict receives support from his main social environment it can help in many ways to reinforce recovery. Recovering addicts who try to actively engage in social life will often find people who do not understand their struggles or need to be sober. The recovering addict’s social community may host events where alcohol or other substances are present because they do not understand the addiction. There are many ways that community support can help a recovering addict to stay sober and five of them include the following:

Encourage – Losing motivation to remain sober is typically a constant struggle for addicts in recovery. A supportive community actively offers words of encouragement and advice to remain sober and continue being motivated to remain sober. Consistent encouragement can be an invaluable resource for recovering addicts who can often lose focus on their recovery efforts.

Remind – Community support can serve as a much needed daily reminder of the need to maintain sobriety. Community support can also help highlight the negative aspects of addiction that encourage an addict to remain sober in order to prevent them from occurring again.

Provide – A supportive community can provide essential resources for a recovering addict such as education, help with job placement and training to increase skills and knowledge. Being provided with social interaction and supportive interpersonal relationships also helps a recovering addict to feel loved and avoid the potentially negative outcomes of isolation.

Understand – Addiction recovery is different for every person but an addiction support community often understands the basic aspects and struggles of recovery. Having a supportive community that understands some of the struggles of recovery can help an addict to know that they are not alone.

Involve – Being involved and feeling included in social gatherings and community events helps an addict avoid boredom and isolation which are two of the most common causes for relapse. Community support groups work to actively include and make a recovering addict a valued participant in social events. This type of involvement can reassure a recovering addict that they are needed and important.

There are different types of community support that can be beneficial for recovering addicts including online communities and in person communities that gather on a regular basis. Active community involvement and support significantly decreases the likelihood of drug relapse. However, relapse can still occur and immediate professional treatment is the most beneficial way to bounce back into recovery.

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